


Between Friends

by sunshyndaisies (writergirlie)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-12
Updated: 2010-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirlie/pseuds/sunshyndaisies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hermione admits she's never kissed anyone, Ron confesses the same. They decide to experience this special rite of passage together--as friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Friends

**Author's Note:**

> OotP interlude

“It’s not funny, Ron.”

 

“Oh, I beg to differ.”

 

Hermione sighed and cast a disapproving look at him over her shoulder. It wasn’t one she liked to use very often, not unless he was being unbearably obnoxious, but it was usually enough to stop him laughing within seconds--well, when he wasn’t in one of those moods to keep pushing her buttons just for the fun of it, anyway.

 

Sometimes she really did get the distinct feeling that Ron Weasley acted this way on purpose to get a rise out of her.

 

“Come on, she’ll be the first to admit it,” he was now saying, his mouth curving into a smug grin. “Tonks knows how clumsy she is--she makes it a point to tell everyone so when she first meets them, doesn’t she?”

 

“Yes, but I’m sure she doesn’t appreciate being reprimanded for it, either.”

 

Ron made an odd sound in his throat that sounded like a laugh trapped inside a cough. Hermione glared at him.

 

“Anyone could have broken that mirror, you know,” she said matter-of-factly. “It was an accident. And besides, Mad-Eye was able to fix it easily enough, wasn’t he?”

 

“If Mad-Eye has to fix every mirror she breaks, it’ll take us all day to get this decorating done,” he said. “And no one _reprimanded_ her. Sirius just thought she’d be safer out in the hallway.” He paused to tilt his head just slightly, then squinted his eyes at something behind her. “Hmm... I think the mantel could do with a bit more holly, don’t you?”

 

Hermione looked back at the fireplace again, mildly annoyed to see that he actually had a good point.

 

“How exactly did you get so good at Christmas decorating, anyway?”

 

Ron shrugged. “Mum, I s’pose,” he said. “Christmas was a big deal at my house. She liked going all out with the decorations. She’d make new ones every year and have us help her.”

 

Caught off-guard, Hermione couldn’t help but smile at the unexpected revelation, chuckling softly to herself when she spotted the tips of his ears slowly turning red.

 

“That sounds nice.”

 

Ron’s cheeks began to mimic his ears. He gave her a quick sideways glance, then cleared his throat.

 

“Come help me look for some more holly, yeah?”

 

He sank to his knees at one of the boxes and beginning to rummage through it. Every so often, he’d draw out a sprig of holly, but none of the ones he’d found seemed quite to his liking, because he’d wrinkle his nose and place them back in the box, then reach in once again to look for more. Hermione knelt beside him and dug her hand in, drawing out something that looked rather nice--until she realised it wasn’t even holly at all.

 

It was mistletoe.

 

“Er... we should hang this up somewhere, too.”

 

She wasn’t really sure why she felt nervous all of a sudden. There was no reason for it, was there? She forgot all about her nervousness, though, when she looked up at Ron and caught the unmistakable twinkle laughter in his eyes.

 

Just what was it that Ron Weasley found so funny about mistletoe?

 

“Right, I’ll go and hang that in the doorway, then,” he said, taking it from her before she could say anything else and getting to his feet. He seemed to be fighting a laugh but it was clear he was moments away from losing that particular battle.

 

“What?”

 

“What d’you mean, what?”

 

She arched an eyebrow. She knew he knew perfectly well what she meant.

 

“Do you want to let me in on the joke?” When he still didn’t answer, she gestured towards the mistletoe, which was now hanging just above the door. “What’s that smile for?”

 

Ron lapsed into a lop-sided grin. “Nothing, just... reminded me of something, that’s all.”

 

“Oh?”

 

She knew she shouldn’t be so transparent, but she couldn’t help it; curiosity was getting the better of her at that moment. Ron seemed to be all too aware of it, too, because his grin was slowly widening.

 

“All right,” he said at last, looking out the door as if to check for any eavesdroppers, then walking towards the fireplace and motioning her to come closer. “Just don’t tell Harry I told you, OK? I swore I wouldn’t breathe a word of it.”

 

Now this was getting curioser and curioser.

 

“I won’t, I promise.”

 

“Well, apparently the kiss with Cho all started because of one of those things,” he said, pointing at the mistletoe. It seemed holding in his amusement all this time had become unbearable now, and he finally let out a rather undignified snort of a laugh. “Can you believe it? I mean, it’s the oldest trick in the book, isn’t it?”

 

Hermione suddenly felt her face grow hot. “I... I wouldn’t know, I suppose...”

 

Ron furrowed his brow. “What?” Then, after a pause, “Oh.”

 

She broke the gaze, unable to take the way he was looking at her, but she could still feel the weight of his stare even as she fussed with the holly on the mantel.

 

“You mean... you’ve never...”

 

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I’ve never.”

 

“Oh.”

 

She heard his feet shuffle, as if he were shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

 

“Oh,” he said a third time, and this time, it set something off inside her.

 

“Honestly Ron, why do you sound so surprised?”

 

He looked a bit taken aback when she whirled in on him, as if he were at a complete loss at how to react. Finally, he dug his hands in his pockets.

 

“Dunno, I... I reckon I just assumed... Viktor-”

 

“Viktor!” The laugh escaped her lips before she could contain it, but then her brain caught up to her vocal chords, and she scrambled to recover. “Sorry, but... well, I can’t believe you thought...”

 

“I wouldn’t have put it past him to try something after Yule Ball last year,” he said in a slightly testy tone.

 

Hermione chuckled again. “Well... he didn’t.”

 

For a moment, she thought she saw something that looked vaguely like relief flicker in his eyes, but she couldn’t be quite sure, and then she wondered why she would even look for it in the first place.

 

Shrugging the thought away, she decided to turn the tables on him. “What about you, then?”

 

Ron had gone back to one of the boxes, this time filling his arms with gingerbread men, who were wriggling in his grasp, as though attempting to make a daring getaway.

 

“Oi, settle down, will you?” he barked at them, then, without looking at Hermione, he said breezily, “What about me?”

 

He wasn’t going to make this easy, she realised. Not that she should have been surprised.

 

“Have you ever...”

 

He looked back at her and grinned, as if challenging her to say the words out loud. He was actually enjoying this, the prat.

 

“Kissed someone.”

 

One of the gingerbread men managed to jump out of Ron’s arms and scuttle away. Ron swore softly (much to her disgust) and set all the others down on the floor just in front of the fireplace, lining them up on the mantel one at a time, still avoiding her question.

 

“I take it by your silence that you’d rather not answer?”

 

He laughed softly then looked at her, his unabashed stare unnerving her in an unexpected way.

 

“Hermione, you’re with me every minute of every day. What do you think?”

 

“Not _every_ minute!” she said. “What about... well, there was that week, remember? Right after the end of term last year.”

 

“Oh yeah,” he said, a dreamy sort of grin spreading on his face. “That marvelous unforgettable week, when I snatched up the first girl I saw in Ottery St. Catchpole and snogged the living daylights out of her...”

 

Hermione felt a rush of blood sting her cheeks. “Fine, if you didn’t like the question, you could have just said so!”

 

Ron’s smile made her feel even more foolish, if that were possible. A stray lock of hair spilled out of her loose ponytail and fell into her eyes; Hermione swatted it away in annoyance.

 

“Well you don’t need to get in a strop about it,” he said teasingly.

 

“I’m _not_ in a strop!” she said. “I was merely asking you a simple question, and as usual, you were avoiding-”

 

He cocked an eyebrow. “Avoiding?”

 

Oh God, why did he have to provoke her so? Now she’d gone and said something that didn’t make any sense at all.

 

“Oh, never mind...”

 

She wished he would stop staring at her like that. Hadn’t Mrs. Weasley ever taught him that it was rude to stare? Finally, he took his eyes away, though only for a second, because he looked up at her again moments later and gave her a sheepish smile.

 

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” he said. “There, are you happy?”

 

The words took her completely by surprise, and she could only look up at him, blinking stupidly in shock.

 

“W-What?”

 

A furious streak of crimson spread across his cheeks and he let out a sort of incredulous laugh. “If you think I’m going to say that again, you’re mental--and I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

 

Before Hermione could help it, she smiled. It seemed to put Ron at ease as well, because soon he broke into a tentative smile as well.

 

“Well, it doesn’t exactly do wonders for a man’s ego to say it, you know.”

 

“Oh Ron, there’s no shame in it.”

 

He snorted. “If you say so,” he muttered. “Me and Neville are the only ones left, who still haven’t...” He paused, his shoulders rising into an involuntary cringe. “Well, let’s just say I don’t fancy having anything in common with Neville, much less _this_.”

 

Hermione tried not to let her smile grow any wider. “Oh.”

 

“What made you think that, anyway?”

 

“What?”

 

Ron rolled his eyes. “That I’d kissed someone.”

 

“Oh, well...”

 

Why had she thought that? There hadn’t been any explicit signs, come to think of it. Ron was right, they did spend so much time together--even more so this year, with their prefect duties--yet, why had she had that curious thought that kept creeping back even when she’d tried to shove it out of the way?

 

And then, she remembered, there had been that one time. That one conversation that had set the wheels in her mind turning.

 

“I suppose I... I wasn’t sure after the way you reacted to Harry and Cho... You know, when he told us about their kiss...”

 

There was a look of genuine surprise on Ron’s face, and his stare made her feel almost... exposed. She bit her lip.

 

“It’s just that you sounded as though...”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Oh God, was he actually going to make her say it?

 

“You sounded as though... you knew what you were talking about.”

 

He laughed. “Well, it wasn’t from experience, I assure you.”

 

As if sensing distraction on Ron’s part, a gingerbread man jumped from the mantel, giving Ron a swift kick in the foot upon landing, but scarpering away at once when Ron lifted his foot off the ground and threatened to crush it with his heel.

 

“Little buggers,” he muttered.

 

Hermione was grateful to it for diffusing the tension, though. She offered him a sympathetic smile, then went to one of the boxes and drew out some tinsel. After a while, she heard Ron moving about as well, pleading with the fairies in the Christmas tree to stay put.

 

After what seemed like an eternity of tense silence between them, he finally said something.

 

“Hermione?”

 

“Yes?”

“Do you ever wonder...”

 

He trailed off. Hermione turned around to look at him.

 

“Er... never mind.”

 

“What?”

 

Ron suddenly turned his attention back to the fairies, poking at one to put it back in place when it tried to jump from one branch to one just below it.

 

“I just wondered if... you ever thought about what it would be like.”

 

He was mumbling so much that she wondered if she heard him correctly. But her heart was racing at the mere possibility.

 

“What it...”

 

“... would be like.” He looked at her tentatively. “You know, kissing someone.”

 

Hermione felt her vocal chords tangle. “I...”

 

Another fairy jumped to a lower branch. Ron wasn’t paying attention, though. He was too busy watching Hermione, making her feel as if she were under a microscope.

 

“Sorry,” he said suddenly, starting to turn away, “that was probably a stupid question-”

 

“Sometimes.”

 

He blinked back at her. Hermione wanted the floor to open and swallow her up.

 

“Wow,” he said. “Wow, I wasn’t sure what answer to expect from you on that one.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, not meaning to sound quite so shrill.

 

“Nothing, just...” He looked to be thinking hard to find the right words. She realised she was probably staring at him a little too accusingly. “Well, I thought maybe you’d think it would be impractical to get caught up in such things. You know... that it might get in the way of school and everything...”

 

Now she was really offended.

 

“I’m not made of books, you know!”

 

“I know!” he said quickly, clearly aware that he’d said the wrong thing. “I didn’t mean-”

 

“Believe it or not, Ron, I am capable of such _impractical_ feelings.”

 

He smiled then, catching her completely off-guard. She eyed him with suspicion, but he seemed genuinely sorry, then muttered, “That’s because you haven’t the emotional range of a teaspoon.”

 

She felt her mouth betray her with a smile. He held out a hand to help her up, but she put tinsel in it instead. He laughed and threw it haphazardly on the tree.

 

“I suppose we’ll find out what it’s like sooner or later,” she said.

 

He was still staring at her. She could feel it.

 

“Find what out?”

 

She walked over to stand beside him, picking out the tinsel he’d flung so carelessly just seconds ago, and rearranging it to look nicer.

 

“Kissing,” she said. She looked up at him, feeling her stomach clench when she caught the intensity of his stare firsthand. “What it’s like to kiss someone.”

 

“Oh,” he said, laughing softly. “Right.”

 

She went back for more tinsel, feeling him follow her closely behind. But she wasn’t prepared at all for the jolt of electricity when they both reached into the box at the same time, their hands brushing for the briefest of moments before they pulled them away a fraction of a second later.

 

Her heart hammered in her ears. She was quite sure he could hear her breathing. Merlin, did she always breathe this loudly?

 

“Ok, don’t laugh...”

 

Hermione blinked back at him, her throat tightening. To her recollection, no good ever came out of a sentence that began with those words.

 

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

 

Was he... blushing?

 

“Well,” he stammered, “I’d like to think that you would... er, that is...”

 

“What?”

 

Ron’s ears were glowing, blending almost seamlessly with his hair. Hermione held her breath.

 

“We’re friends, right?”

 

She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but that question was certainly not it. She looked back at him in bewilderment, wondering why he would ever ask such a question, but even more so, why it would bother her so much.

 

“Of course we are,” she said. “Why-”

 

But he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Instead he had leaned back at an angle, as if to peer out of the doorway, where hushed voices were whispering about for fear of waking Mrs. Black.

 

“Is someone listening?”

 

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. They’re putting up holly in the hall...” He turned to her again. “I was just thinking...”

 

“Yes?”

 

“They seem awfully busy outside, and... I’m sure no one would, and... well...”

 

Her stomach was clenching painfully, though she hadn’t a clue why. Ron seemed to be working up the nerve to ask her something, but the words weren’t coming easy for him.

 

Finally, he blurted out, “So, how about it?”

 

She stared at him. “Could you maybe try it in English this time, Ron?”

 

He sighed, obviously frustrated with himself. “All right, seeing as how neither of us have... you know, kissed someone yet, and... both of us would like to know what it’s like...”

 

Oh God. Oh God, he wasn’t actually saying...

 

“It’s the perfect way to go about it, don’t you think?”

 

He _was_ saying it.

 

“I mean, we’re friends...”

 

Hermione had suddenly developed an intense hatred for the word _friends_.

 

“... and there’s no pressure, and there’s none of those... you know, impractical feelings to get in the way.”

 

The last few words sounded more like a question than a statement. Or perhaps she had only imagined it to be the case.

 

Hope it to be the case.

 

“Say something, will you?”

 

“I...”

 

Ron cringed. “You hate the idea.” He brought a hand up to the back of his neck and began to rub at it. “What the bloody hell was I thinking, anyway-”

 

“Sure.”

 

He stopped in mid-motion before he could turn away from her completely. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he returned his eyes to hers.

 

“What did you just say?”

 

That was a good question. Panic was welling up inside her as the realisation set in that she had just said the first thing that came into her head.

 

“Well... why not?”

 

“Yeah,” he said, as though trying to draw reassurance from her, “why not?”

 

“I mean... it’d be between friends.”

 

Yes. Yes, that was it, that was it exactly. No need to panic at all.

 

“Right. Between friends.”

 

“Right.”

 

Her heart hammered away against her ribcage. Maybe she hadn’t thought this through enough after all. He was coming closer, and she was coming closer, and... Oh God, his eyelashes were brushing against hers...

 

She felt, rather than saw him smile.

 

“What?” she said, feeling him pull away slightly.

 

“You’ve got fairy dust on your nose.”

 

“Fairy dust?”

 

He slid a finger down the bridge of her nose, then blew off the glitter he’d gathered from the tip of his finger. “Fairies, remember?” he said. “From Dung’s tree.”

 

“Oh... right-”

 

His mouth was on hers before she could finish the half-sentence, pressing gently as if asking for permission. She granted it.

 

And then her instincts took over.

 

He tasted of the spiced cider he’d had earlier that evening, sweet cinnamon and nutmeg. He tasted exactly the way she thought he would, though she didn’t know that she’d known it in the first place. She could feel him smile against her mouth again, feel him lift his hand up to her cheek to cup it, and just when she felt the slight flutter of his tongue sliding against hers, a terrible, blood-curdling scream jolted them apart.

 

“FILTHY HALF-BREEDS!! SOILING THIS PRISTINE HOUSE-”

 

“Oh, Sirius, I’m sorry... I swear, that umbrella stand just jumped out of nowhere!!”

 

When her heart finally slid out of her throat, Hermione managed a laugh. She looked up and saw that Ron was laughing too, and soon their laughter faded, replaced once again by awkward silence. Hermione smiled at him.

 

“Reckon we’re just about done here,” he said softly. Then, as though wanting to clarify himself, he said, “With the decorating, I mean.”

 

Hermione nodded. “Yes, I think we’ve hung about as much tinsel as this room can take.”

 

He smiled just then, and she felt as though her heart would burst through her ribs at any moment.

 

“We should probably head outside.”

 

“Right...”

 

“Hermione-”

 

“Ron-”

 

He let out another nervous laugh. “That was...”

 

She held her breath. He flashed a smile, then finished the sentence.

 

“... brilliant.”

 

She stared back at him, feeling her mouth trying to form words that just couldn’t seem to make their way out.

 

He smiled again and began to walk out, stopping at the door and turning around one last time to look at her. “You coming?”

 

Finally, she managed to find her voice.

 

“Right behind you.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
